Been eager to get this doorstop of a book, which sat on my shelf for most of 2016: David Wotton’s The Invention of Science. I’ll have more to say later, but for now, a few pages in, it’s clear that Wotton really takes the long view on science. “It is far too soon to say” how the Scientific Revolution will turn out:
But since 1572 the world has been caught up in a vast Scientific Revolution that has transformed the nature of knowledge and the capacities of humankind. Without it there would have been no Industrial Revolution and none of the modern technologies on which we depends; human life would be drastically poorer and shorter and most of us would live lives of unremitting toil. How long it will last, and what its consequences will be, it is far too soon to say; it may end with nuclear war or ecological catastrophe, or (though this seems much less likely) with happiness, peace and prosperity.
The Finch and Pea 